Central Highlands halt licensing forest conversion projectsThe Central Highlands provinces have halted licensing projects involving the use of natural forests for other land needs, particularly for industrial tree plantations, and those likely to overexploit forest products in converted forest areas. Deforestation in the Central Highlands. It was estimated that there were 220 projects involving conversion of forest into rubber plantations, spreading across an area of about 115,000 hectares, including over 93,500 hectares of poor natural forest. Of these areas, about 73,130 hectares of rubber have been planted; nearly 9,700 hectares, or 13.2 percent, of which have poorly developed or died. The steering committee has pointed out many shortcomings in forest management of the Central Highlands provinces in the past that led to large forest loss or ineffective forest conversion projects.

Source: VietNamNet News May 26, 2017 09:56 UTC